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part in it. In August he advocated the organization of a new party, to be called the Workingmen's Trade and Labor Union, which name, however, was at a subsequent meeting changed to that of the "Workingmen's Party of California;" but, on account of the fact that its principal meetings were from about that time held every Sunday afternoon on the then vacant lots in front of the new city hall, it was usually known as the “Sand-lots” party. On September 21, 1877, a public meeting was held at Union Hall on Howard Street in San Francisco for the avowed purpose of considering the condition of unemployed laborers and providing ways and means for their relief. The first speaker was Philip A. Roach, who in the course of his remarks praised the workingmen; decried the employment of the pick-handle brigade in the recent trouble, and declared that extra policemen in San Francisco were not needed. Kearney also spoke at the same meeting and, after working himself up into a sort of oratorical frenzy, exclaimed that he wanted to see a musket in the hands of every laboring man, and predicted that within one year there would be twenty thousand laborers in San Francisco well-armed, well-organized and well-able to demand and take what they wished "despite the police, the military and hoodlum committee of safety." He not only threatened the Chinese with summary treatment, but also inveighed against the capitalists of the state; gave the names of many; reveled in such terms as "hanging is necessary," "a few fires will clear the atmosphere," and others of similar import, and closed with a declaration that his speech was incendiary and that he intended it to be so. Such talk exactly suited the riotous and anarchistic elements; and Kearney at once took position as a leader ainongst them. At a meeting on the sand-lots a few days afterwards he again spoke in much the same strain, only with greater violence, declaring that San Francisco should meet the fate of Moscow, if the condition of the laboring classes were not soon improved, and that bullets were not wanting to enforce their demands. At this intemperate language he was called to order; but the crowd applauded and urged him on; and on October 5, when the new so-called Workingmen's party of California came to be permanently organized, Kearney was chosen president, John G. Day vice-president and H. L. Knight secretary.

The principles of the association, as enunciated by a committee of five persons appointed to formulate them, were "to unite all poor and working men and their friends into one political party for the purpose of defending themselves against the dangerous encroachments of capital on the happiness of our people and the liberties of our country; to wrest the government from the hands of the rich and place it in those of the people, where it properly belongs; to rid the country of cheap Chinese labor as soon as possible and by all means in our power, because it tends still more to degrade labor and aggrandize capital; to destroy land monopoly in our state by such laws as will make it impossible; to destroy the great money power of the rich by a system of taxation that will make great wealth impossible in the future; to provide decently for the poor and unfortunate, the weak, the helpless and especially the young, because the country is rich enough to do so and religion, humanity and patriotism demand that we should do so; to elect none but competent workingmen and their friends to any office whatever. The rich have ruled us until they have ruined us. We will now take our own affairs into our own hands. The republic must and shall be preserved, and only workingmen will do it. Our shoddy aristocrats want an emperor and a standing army to shoot down the people." The party proposed, as soon as it got strong enough, to wait upon all who employed Chinese; ask for their discharge, and mark as public enemies those who refused to comply with their request. It further declared that it would exhaust all peaceable means of attaining its ends, but it would not be denied justice while it had the power to enforce its demands. It would encourage no riot or outrage, but it would not volunteer to repress, put down, arrest or prosecute the hungry and impatient who manifest their hatred of the Chinamen by a crusade against "John" or those who employ him. "Let those who raise the storm by their selfishness," it concluded, "suppress it themselves. If they dare raise the devil, let them meet him face to face. We will not help them."

When Kearney was called to order at the meeting of October 5, on account of his incendiary language, it became evident that there was a faction among the Workingmen that was opposed to

him. This faction, which was apparently no better disposed than the Kearney crowd but merely wished to dominate and control the new movement, withdrew for the time and, at the next meeting on the sand-lots, made a separate appearance, having its own stand and speakers. Such action was of course regarded by Kearney as insufferable mutiny; and, in the course of his usual violent harangue to his own adherents against the Chinese and the capitalists, pointing to his rivals, he exclaimed, "You will have to mob those white Sioux and white pigtail-men first. You will have to shoot them down on the streets, before you begin on the Chinese.” At this point Kearney's crowd, following out his instructions, made a rush for the stand from which one of the rival orators was speaking and overturned it. It was immediately righted—and again overturned. There was every appearance of a Kilkenny fight then and there; when, by the interference of outsiders and perhaps a little prudent fear of the consequences, the rivals were again separated, and each resumed its own peculiar quality of agitation on its own side of the sand-lots. But, as might be expected, Kearney's superiority in the use of threatening language and vituperation soon attracted the rival crowd; its speakers were silenced, because nobody would listen to them; and Kearney ruled, as it were, supreme. Unfortunately, the city authorities at the time were too much disposed to temporize and parley with the disturbers of the peace; there was an apparent unwillingness to offend too greatly the sand-lots voters, and the newspapers of the day in general and several of them in particular stirred up and spread the disorder by their publications of and comments upon sand-lots occurrences.

One of the San Francisco newspapers of largest and widest circulation, on October 16, 1877, published a manifesto, addressed by Kearney as president and Knight as secretary of the new party to the editor, in which they declared that the Chinese must go; and that it was not altogether sufficient to rely upon votes to drive them off. Congress, they said, “has often been manipulated by thieves, peculators, land-grabbers, bloated bond-holders, railroad magnates and shoddy aristocrats—a golden lobby dictating its proceedings. Our own legislature is little better. The rich rule them by bribes. The rich rule the country by fraud and

cunning; and we say that fraud and cunning shall not rule us." They said that when the workingmen decided that the Chinese must go, and when their will was thwarted by bribery, corruption and fraud, it was time for them to meet bribery, corruption and fraud with force. If this was treason, let those who thought so make the most of it. An anonymous correspondent, under the name of "Citizen," had pronounced these expressions dangerous to the public peace and had called upon the officers of the law to prosecute for them. But he was only making the old plea of oppressors everywhere. McMahon had said this of the speeches of Gambetta. Every tyrant had said the same. King George spoke thus of the utterances of Patrick Henry. But, they continued, "who is this 'Citizen' who dares not write his name?this coward, who would have somebody else shoot down his own race to make room for the moon-eyed Mongolian? Let him know that the Workingmen know their rights and know also how to maintain them, and mean to do it. The reign of bloated knaves is over. The people are about to take their own affairs into their own hands; and they will not be stopped either by 'Citizen,' vigilantes, state militia or United States troops." Such language being used, and being allowed to be printed and published in the newspapers, the natural result was that the Workingmen's party imagined they ruled the city and that the authorities were afraid of them. They at length determined to make a move against capital and, at least, give it a terrible fright.

On October 29, about three thousand of them proceeded in a tumultuous body to the summit of what was known as "Nob Hill," near the corner of California and Mason streets in San Francisco, where the railroad magnates, Stanford, Hopkins and Crocker, who had moved down from Sacramento some four or five years previously, had erected splendid residences. Crocker's place especially attracted attention from the fact that, wishing to occupy an entire block between California and Sacramento streets for his grounds, he had purchased all but a single small lot with a house on it, belonging to an individual named Yung, about the middle of the Sacramento street front. This he had attempted to purchase; but, at every offer he made, Yung is said to have raised the price, until, being thoroughly disgusted with such

conduct, Crocker determined not to buy at all; and, instead of doing so, he built an immense fence on his own ground all around Yung's house, high enough not only to shut it out of sight from any part of his grounds but also to exclude Yung from the sunshine so necessary to health and comfort in San Francisco. This fence seemed a popular object of complaint; and, after the crowds arrived in the vicinity, Kearney addressed them in very inflammatory appeals about it, its builder and the railroad magnates as a body. He said, according to the report of his words upon which he was afterwards prosecuted, that they were thieves and would soon feel the power of the Workingmen; that, when he had thoroughly organized his party, they would march through the city and compel the thieves to give up their plunder; that he would lead them to the city hall, clear out the police force, hang the prosecuting attorney, burn every book that had a particle of law in it, and then enact new laws for the Workingmen; that he would give the Central Pacific just three months to discharge their Chinamen and, if it were not done, Stanford and his crowd would have to take the consequences; that he would give Crocker until November 29 to take down the fence around. Yung's house and, if Crocker did not do it, he would lead the Workingmen up and tear it down, and give Crocker the worst beating with the sticks that a man ever got. On another occasion about the same period in Irish-American Hall, according to the same report, he said he wanted to make a motion that men, who claimed to be leaders in the Workingmen's movement and flagged in their interest, should be hung up to a lamp-post. "By the Eternal," he exclaimed, "we will take them by the throat and choke them until their life's blood ceases to beat and then run them into the sea. A fine young man asked me, 'What position are you going to give me?' His name is Lynch. I said, 'I will make you chief judge.' His name is Lynch, recollectJudge Lynch; and that is the judge the Workingmen will want in California, if the condition of things is not ameliorated. I advise every one within the sound of my voice, if he is able, to own a musket and a hundred rounds of ammunition."

This sort of Jack Cade talk, which was attracting the rabble in great numbers and urging them on to violence, at length aroused

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